My training in Hawaii consisted of three radio repair schools and the Escape Evasion and Survival school. I finished them and received orders to transit from Hawaii to Guam.
I left Naval Air Station Barber’s Point with Roy, Doug, Ken and Cal in a Navy bus headed to Hickam Air Force Base for a flight to Guam. We were to be flown from the MATS (Military Air Transport Service) terminal in Hawaii and our flight was not scheduled to leave for three hours. Someone came up with the idea to go over to the Airman’s club on base and have a beer. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Military flights were rarely on time in our brief experience, so off we went to the club. We had a couple of beers and headed back to the terminal.
We approached the counter to ask about our flight and the woman behind the counter asked: “who are you?” We gave our names and she said, “We were paging you throughout the terminal. That plane left an hour ago.” She then said we were to report to Shore Patrol for transit to Pearl Harbor. We begged her to see if we could just stay in the terminal and catch the next flight out, or at least be sent back to Barber’s Point. We were not happy about having to go to Pearl Harbor, but we had no choice. It was probably because we were afraid of what the Navy would do to us. The Shore Patrol office sent special transportation just for us to Pearl.
We were bounced out in front of the transit barracks at Pearl and herded inside. There behind the desk was the Chief who ran the transit barracks, a crusty old Boson’s Mate who had a finely developed disdain for aviation types like us. He looked us over and said: “here’s the deal. You have a choice; you can volunteer for mess cooking duty the entire time you are here in Pearl, or you can be placed on report for missing movement.” Now in those days, as far as I know missing movement was as bad as anything a sailor could do. I don’t remember the article number in the UCMJ that covered the offense or what the full punishment was, but I know I was happy to be offered the chance to avoid finding out the ramifications of the offence. Brig time was I believe high on the list of punishments approved in the UCMJ for missing movement. (Later in my career we were leaving the pier in San Diego for a nine month cruise to the Gulf Of Tonkin off Vietnam and the gangplank had been lifted and the tugs were shoving the Kitty Hawk out into San Diego harbor so the ship could get underway under its own power, when a sailor came running down the pier and without hesitation leaped from the quay wall (dock) into the harbor and started swimming for the ship, not wanting to face a missing movement charge himself. He swam to the tug and the bosons high lined him up onto the ship. I’m sure he was invited to see his division officer, and the executive officer; but it was so funny, I can’t imagine he got into trouble especially since he technically didn’t miss ship’s movement.) Now back to my story.
The transit barracks at Pearl Harbor was like many other transit barracks in the Navy, only worse. There were hundreds of sailors there, assigned to ships at sea and waiting for those ships to come into port. They formed an unruly brigade of misfits and people barely contained by any rules because no one really wanted to take charge of these guys who were in and out every day or week or month as ships pulled into port. No one knew anyone else, so petty theft was rampant among men whose pay records were buried somewhere between where they left and where they were supposed to go. I slept with my wallet in my pillow sack and carried it with me to the showers. No one really had a name there. Everyone mustered each morning outside the barracks on a grinder (parking lot) with a series of numbers painted inside circles that covered the grinder. Each man had his number and he needed to be in the circle with his number at 0700 for muster. That was how they kept track of who was where.
My time in Pearl harbor was spent working with a cook in the galley, adding ingredients to and stirring huge cook pots that held perhaps 50 gallons of soup or stew or beans. It wasn’t as bad as I feared and I even liked it for the short time I was there. It was certainly better than a guided tour of the Pearl Harbor brig. Perhaps that’s why it seemed so good. I don’t remember what the other guys did in the galley there or even seeing them during our detention. The week or so ended and we were on a plane for Guam, happy to be shed of Pearl Harbor and on to our destiny in the more exciting world of airborne early warning radar operators.
That transition ended up being further delayed as I was diverted to a 94 day stint as a mess cook on Guam. That story is titled ‘Breaking Eggs’ it comes up next.
Copyright Bill Weber 2006-2019 and beyond.
I left Naval Air Station Barber’s Point with Roy, Doug, Ken and Cal in a Navy bus headed to Hickam Air Force Base for a flight to Guam. We were to be flown from the MATS (Military Air Transport Service) terminal in Hawaii and our flight was not scheduled to leave for three hours. Someone came up with the idea to go over to the Airman’s club on base and have a beer. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Military flights were rarely on time in our brief experience, so off we went to the club. We had a couple of beers and headed back to the terminal.
We approached the counter to ask about our flight and the woman behind the counter asked: “who are you?” We gave our names and she said, “We were paging you throughout the terminal. That plane left an hour ago.” She then said we were to report to Shore Patrol for transit to Pearl Harbor. We begged her to see if we could just stay in the terminal and catch the next flight out, or at least be sent back to Barber’s Point. We were not happy about having to go to Pearl Harbor, but we had no choice. It was probably because we were afraid of what the Navy would do to us. The Shore Patrol office sent special transportation just for us to Pearl.
We were bounced out in front of the transit barracks at Pearl and herded inside. There behind the desk was the Chief who ran the transit barracks, a crusty old Boson’s Mate who had a finely developed disdain for aviation types like us. He looked us over and said: “here’s the deal. You have a choice; you can volunteer for mess cooking duty the entire time you are here in Pearl, or you can be placed on report for missing movement.” Now in those days, as far as I know missing movement was as bad as anything a sailor could do. I don’t remember the article number in the UCMJ that covered the offense or what the full punishment was, but I know I was happy to be offered the chance to avoid finding out the ramifications of the offence. Brig time was I believe high on the list of punishments approved in the UCMJ for missing movement. (Later in my career we were leaving the pier in San Diego for a nine month cruise to the Gulf Of Tonkin off Vietnam and the gangplank had been lifted and the tugs were shoving the Kitty Hawk out into San Diego harbor so the ship could get underway under its own power, when a sailor came running down the pier and without hesitation leaped from the quay wall (dock) into the harbor and started swimming for the ship, not wanting to face a missing movement charge himself. He swam to the tug and the bosons high lined him up onto the ship. I’m sure he was invited to see his division officer, and the executive officer; but it was so funny, I can’t imagine he got into trouble especially since he technically didn’t miss ship’s movement.) Now back to my story.
The transit barracks at Pearl Harbor was like many other transit barracks in the Navy, only worse. There were hundreds of sailors there, assigned to ships at sea and waiting for those ships to come into port. They formed an unruly brigade of misfits and people barely contained by any rules because no one really wanted to take charge of these guys who were in and out every day or week or month as ships pulled into port. No one knew anyone else, so petty theft was rampant among men whose pay records were buried somewhere between where they left and where they were supposed to go. I slept with my wallet in my pillow sack and carried it with me to the showers. No one really had a name there. Everyone mustered each morning outside the barracks on a grinder (parking lot) with a series of numbers painted inside circles that covered the grinder. Each man had his number and he needed to be in the circle with his number at 0700 for muster. That was how they kept track of who was where.
My time in Pearl harbor was spent working with a cook in the galley, adding ingredients to and stirring huge cook pots that held perhaps 50 gallons of soup or stew or beans. It wasn’t as bad as I feared and I even liked it for the short time I was there. It was certainly better than a guided tour of the Pearl Harbor brig. Perhaps that’s why it seemed so good. I don’t remember what the other guys did in the galley there or even seeing them during our detention. The week or so ended and we were on a plane for Guam, happy to be shed of Pearl Harbor and on to our destiny in the more exciting world of airborne early warning radar operators.
That transition ended up being further delayed as I was diverted to a 94 day stint as a mess cook on Guam. That story is titled ‘Breaking Eggs’ it comes up next.
Copyright Bill Weber 2006-2019 and beyond.
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